


the edge of seventeen

by dizzy



Series: we're all dying anyway 2019 daily fic advent [2]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, allusions to period accurate racism and homophobia, but not that angsty despite those tags, period accurate internalized homophobia, richie and eddie just like to cuddle and touch okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21647104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: There's something fucked up about Derry, Maine and Richie figures if the whole damn town gets to be this strange and break all the rules of what it's supposed to be, why can't they do that, too?Prompt:richie and eddie started dating when they were seventeen(I blurred the specifics of the prompt but the intent is still there.)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: we're all dying anyway 2019 daily fic advent [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559167
Comments: 15
Kudos: 145





	the edge of seventeen

They wander the aisles of the pharmacy. 

Richie slips things in his pocket just because he can. Eddie pretends not to notice, because the idea of getting caught and someone telling his mom makes him hyperventilate. 

He'll still split the bag of Skittles with Richie later, though. 

*

They're going over to Big Bill's later, but Bill made it clear early arrivals weren't welcome. He's got the house to himself for the weekend and a new girlfriend he's probably putting some Luke Perry worthy moves on. 

Stan will be there, he always is. Ben - probably. Mike doesn't show up much anymore. Things in Derry might be a little less murdery-clowny but they're not any less awful for someone like him. When they all hang out it's just the five of them, not like tonight where Bill's invited a lot of people from school over. 

"What are you wearing?" Eddie asks, poking through his closet. 

Richie shrugs. He's on the bed reading an old X-Men issue. "I was thinking a lacy little number, maybe red to really show off-" 

Eddie throws a shoe at him. "You're not helping me." 

"Aw, Eds." Fondness drips saccharine sweet from Richie's tongue. "You know I think you look good in anything. Or nothing." 

Eddie just rolls his eyes and turns back to the closet. Richie stares at the smooth skin of his back, and then watches the muscle shift as Eddie pulls a baby blue polo on. 

"Yeah?" He asks, when he turns around. 

Richie smiles approvingly. "Yeah." 

*

Bill is popular enough to have a party and for people to want to come, but he doesn't really go in for ragers. 

It's really just a big open basement with booze and scary movies playing on the television. Richie doesn't hate it. It's nice to be in a place without adults and feel like actual teenagers who don't have a sewer's worth of trauma they're trying to live through and past. 

Eddie doesn't like it too much but Eddie feels like his mom is gonna be able to smell alcohol on him. He wraps his arms tight around himself and says that to Stan, who always looks like he'd rather be someone else at parties. 

(Most other places, too, actually. It's just a Stan thing,)

"She'll smell the vapors of the Devil's juice, or maybe that's the hormones of your fellow degenerate teenage brethren," Richie says, in his best old horror movie announcer voice. 

"Right," Eddie sneers. "Those would mostly be from you." 

He play shoves at Richie but Richie comes right back to him, like a yoyo spinning its way back up a familiar path. He comes back closer than before, even, wrapping one arm loosely around Eddie's waist and stooping down to dig his chin into Eddie's shoulder. 

Eddie elbows him and then steals Richie's drink to take a sip. Stan just keeps watching them. When he realizes Richie's caught him staring, he shakes his head and rolls his eyes a bit. 

*

It's flirting. Richie knows it. 

It's flirting, and Eddie's a boy. But it's okay. It's just Richie being Richie, being Richie with Eddie, the way he always has been. 

Yeah, their friendship might be a little weird, and some people might not get it. 

But they murdered a killer clown together when they were thirteen years old. They've seen terrible horrible things that no one should ever have to see, no matter how old they are, and adults barely even remembered the little faces that are forever missing from their streets and their classrooms. 

There's something fucked up about Derry, Maine and Richie figures if the whole damn town gets to be this strange and break all the rules of what it's supposed to be, why can't they do that, too? 

*

They have a few drinks, but they don't get drunk. Eddie because of Mrs. K's above average alcohol sniffing abilities and Richie because... he just doesn't. 

He used to, when he would go to a party and Eddie wasn't there because he was out of town visiting his aunts or his mom just wouldn't let him leave. 

That's how he got his first kiss. It was seven minutes in heaven with a girl named Ashley whose mouth tasted like tangerine Zima. 

He'd thrown up in the bushes outside afterwards and spent a week making up something to him that Eddie didn't even know about, and maybe wouldn't have even cared about if Richie had told him. 

(Richie hopes he'd have cared.) 

*

"Hey!" Eddie says, sitting upright. 

"'ello there," Richie says, looking at him. 

"You've got Skittles!" Eddie sounds accusatory, like Richie should have read his mind and handed them over before Eddie even had a chance to ask. 

"I do, my good sir. Right in my pocket." 

"Well." Eddie holds out a demanding hand. "Give them to me." 

Richie lifts an eyebrow. "Get them yourself." 

For a second he thinks that Eddie won't, mostly from the way Eddie glances around the room. Then Eddie tilts his head defiantly and slides his hand right into the pocket of Richie's jeans. He fumbles for a moment that Richie wishes would last forever and then he plucks the crinkly red bag out. 

Their eyes meet and Eddie smirks and Richie lets out a noisy breath and it feels like that rope between them has gone taught, like some part of it is fraying. 

It feels like that between them more and more often lately. He doesn't know what happens when the rope snaps but he likes this feeling right now well enough. 

*

They stay until the end, because they're good friends like that. 

Also because Eddie falls asleep on Richie's shoulder and Richie doesn't want to wake him up. 

"You s-s-s-leeping over?" Bill asks. 

Richie shrugs and looks down at Eddie. He's not drooling. Of course not. Edward Kaspbrak would never. "Looks like it." 

Eddie wakes up a few minutes later, while Bill's making a halfhearted attempt at putting beer cans into a trash bag. His girlfriend's already gone but Richie can spot a hickey on his collarbone. 

"What time is it?" Eddie whispers, nuzzling his cheek into Richie's shoulder. 

Bill's eyes flicker up at them, then pointedly look away. His mouth gets all tight when he sees things like that. It makes Richie mad sometimes. He doesn't know exactly what it is Bill's thinking, but whatever it is comes dangerously close to putting a spiderweb crack in the glass of Richie's rationale. 

Bill went through it too. Bill's supposed to get it. He's supposed to know they're all allowed to be a little weird. They earned it with their blood and broken bones. 

But he doesn't say that. Everything is a balancing act, most of all the things in Richie's head. 

"Aye aye," Richie says, saluting him. The tail end of it snags on a yawn that he doesn't even try to cover with his hand. "You heading up to bed, Billiam? At the tender young hour of... two in the morning?" 

Bill throws a beer can at Richie. It's empty, thankfully. "No, I'm cleaning, dumbass." 

Eddie snickers. 

"Hush, you," Richie says, playful in the most tender of ways. "You're supposed to be on my side." 

Eddie doesn't really argue. He just says, "I'm easily bought." 

"Eddie, y-y-you can sleep in the guest room if you want," he finally says. "I put all my m-m-mom's jewelry in their earlier and l-l-locked the d-d-d-door." 

"Sorry." Eddie slaps a hand down on Richie's thigh. He leaves it there for a second then uses it to propel himself up. "He wins." 

"Nooo!" Richie reaches up and out, wraps his long arms around Eddie's waist before he can get too far away and topples him back down. "You're mine! All mine! I won't relinquish!" 

Eddie's giggling when he settles onto Richie's lap. He's still tired and Richie can tell, because that's the only way Eddie would be this pliant. 

Bill is doing that not-looking-at-them thing again, but he says, "You can b-both sleep in t-there." 

So maybe he does get it, just a little bit, in whatever way he can. 

*

It's not like they do any of the really weird stuff. 

(The kind of stuff Richie doesn't let himself think about wanting to do.) 

(Except for when he does. Like when Eddie's in his lap or when Eddie sticks a hand in his pocket to pull some candy out or when Eddie laughs or breathes or generally just exists.)

"Richie," Eddie whispers. 

He's holding Richie's fingers in his hand, tugging and toying with them gently. 

Sleepy Eddie might be Richie's favorite Eddie. Or a close second, behind Screaming In Someone's Face Eddie. 

"Yeah?" Richie asks. He rolls onto his side and slings his other arm around Eddie. 

Eddie shuffles in just the tiniest bit closer too, and then sleepily whispers, "Next time get Razzles. I like those better."


End file.
